Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A WEEK AFTER LEAVING MANHATTAN, and a week before he was due to return, Leandro's phone began to ring, with Skye's face on the screen. Driving to his parents' house for a long overdue conversation, he punched the button for the speakerphone, his body reacting unmistakably to just the promise of her voice.

" Ciao, bella," he practically growled. Seven days away from Skye was apparently his limit. He'd dreamt of her last night and the dreams were so vivid and real, so tantalizing, he'd woken feeling like someone had forced him into a year of celibacy.

"Leandro, hi." Her voice was soft. He gripped the wheel, angling his face a little towards the seat beside him. He wished she were there. He could see Skye here, in Italy, in his low, powerful car. His eyes flicked to the rear vision mirror. He could get a car seat installed for Harper. She'd love Italy. They both would. The beginning of an idea formed, to bring them here as a surprise. Did Skye even own a passport? He doubted Harper would. "Are you there? "

He almost laughed. He'd been so distracted imagining Skye was with him he forgot she was on the phone.

" Si. How are you?" He could only remember one other time she'd called him—when Jay had threatened her, and she'd tried to end things with him. It sent a shiver down his spine for many reasons. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, and no."

He frowned. "What does that mean."

"Do you have a moment?"

I have all the time in the world for you. "Sure. What's going on?"

Her soft sigh echoed all the way across the Atlantic, and onto the continent, flooding his car and his soul. "I can't see you again."

He narrowed his eyes on the road ahead. "What's happened?"

"This isn't about Jay," she was quick to reassure him. "I haven't seen him since that day. Apart from a barrage of texts, I think he's gone from my life for now."

He was silent, waiting for her to continue.

"This is about me, and Harper." She cleared her throat. "And what's best for us."

His mind was turning too slowly, like a car engine that was decades out of date. "And that's not seeing me again?"

"I'm sorry."

"What does that mean?"

"That I can't see you again." Her tone was emphatic, angry even.

He met it with silence at first, and then: "May I ask why?"

Silence.

"I think an explanation is in order, don't you?"

"It's hard to explain." Her voice quivered. Was she crying? He felt like an ass. This was obviously difficult for her to do, and he wasn't making it any easier. But didn't she get that it was hard for him as well? She was saying things that were the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear.

"I'm in over my head," she admitted after a beat. "We agreed we'd keep this fun, but it's never been just fun between us. It's never been light-hearted and simple. Even that first night was intense, and I'd just met you. I don't know why it's this way with us, but it scares the hell out of me. I feel as though I'm being burned alive and I'm terrified."

He swore silently, checked the mirror then pulled off the side of the road. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have whilst driving at speed.

"So we can make it work in a way that suits you. That's my whole point. We'll keep it light. We can do that. We have to—surely that's better than cutting me out of your life altogether?"

A long silence. He held his breath.

"And then what?"

He frowned. It was a question that had been hovering, if he was honest, on the periphery of his own mind too.

"You said we'd end it when it suited us. Right?"

He grabbed onto the logic of that, because it made sense. " Si. When we are both ready, we'll end it."

"But that's my point, Leandro." Her voice throbbed with emotion. "If I don't end it now, I don't think I'll ever want to. Every time I see you, you become more and more a part of me. My heart wants this to be real. Like the crazy, fairy tale forever kind of real I dreamed about as a girl. But my head knows that doesn't exist, my head knows I can't risk it. And my head knows it's not really what you want, anyway. "

"Don't do that," he murmured, shaking his head in frustration. "Don't make this about what I want."

Silence throbbed. "What do you want?"

"To keep seeing you," he replied, as though it were something they'd been discussing for five hours not five minutes. "As we agreed."

"But not forever?"

There it was. The gauntlet. If he took it up and told her he was willing to try for the fairy tale, then what?

His heart sped up at the very idea, but she was right. His head had to come into play too. This wasn't just about them. She was a mom. Harper was a part of this picture. Could Leandro really make promises to Skye knowing what the cost would be if he were to break them?

"Is this because I introduced you as a ‘friend' to Andie and Max?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. Hearing that, I was offended. I didn't expect to meet your family, but at the same time, when I did meet them, I thought you might admit what I was to you. And then I realized that you had. That to you, I'm little more than a friend with benefits. It hurt."

"You know where my life is at," he said haltingly. "I want you in it, but if you're asking me for a marriage proposal?—,"

She made a guttural noise of surprise. "I'm not. I'm not asking you for that. I'm not asking you for anything."

His gut rolled. Frustration was bursting through him. "You're overthinking this. We're good together. Why not just enjoy that?"

He knew the answer though. Because of her bastard ex. Skye wasn't prepared to go day by day and see where her life took her. She had to protect herself and her daughter. Even from him ?

"I don't want to hurt you," he said thickly. "You are important to me."

"I'm somewhat important to you when you're here," she admitted grudgingly. "But you have a whole other life on the other side of the Atlantic. You'll forget me soon enough."

"Stop attributing feelings to me. I live in Italy but that doesn't mean I don't think about you when I'm here."

She made a soft groaning noise. "My point is that we always knew this would end. We said that, right from the beginning. It's just…I need it to end now. I can't keep seeing you and pretending that you don't mean as much to me as you do. I need to stop seeing you and start forgetting you. I need to move on with my life. My life—that I've worked so hard to create."

"What life?" He growled. "You are living with your parents, working a job that is well and truly beneath your potential, hiding yourself away from the world, avoiding any kind of relationship because you are scared of letting yourself live."

She gasped. "Is that what you think of me?"

He stared at the motorway, his gut twisting painfully. No. It wasn't what he thought of her. Not really. He felt all those things, to some extent, but only because he saw how amazing she was, and what potential she had.

When he didn't say anything, Skye continued, "I am scared…I'm scared of letting myself down again, like I did with Jay. How I went from being independent and on course in my life to someone I didn't even recognize, all because I thought I was in love. Everything about you, and how I feel about you, scares me, Leandro."

"I'm not him. I would never do that to you. "

"No, you're a thousand times better than him and when I'm with you, I feel—I want?—,"

"The fairy tale," he responded.

Silence crackled down the phone line.

"I want an impossible future," she admitted. "And how much I want it is why I have to end this, and now. I should never have let it start up. I should have run a thousand miles from you that first night."

His head hurt. He stared straight ahead, wondering at the burning sensation at the back of his throat.

"I'm glad you didn't."

Silence.

He searched for something to say. He wanted to change her mind, but to what end? Because he still wanted to be with her? Because he liked flying to New York and having her there, waiting for him?

"Can we talk about this face to face?"

She said nothing.

"Skye?"

"Oh." She cleared her throat. "I know I should have waited until next weekend," she admitted softly. "But I wasn't sure I'd be strong enough to do this if you were standing right in front of me."

Precisamente , he wanted to say triumphantly. If they were having this conversation in the same room, he'd have been able to reach out and hug her, kiss her, to reassure her. To change her mind.

"I'm so confused, Leandro, but the one thing I know for sure is that I can't see you again."

It was like the tectonic plates were in a state of furious rearrangement. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles glowed white. "You're serious? "

"Yes." Such a small voice, a tiny word. "Goodbye, Leandro."

Goodbye? She was seriously ending this, over the phone, and telling him ‘goodbye'. He was dumbfounded and couldn't think of what to say in response to that.

It didn't matter anyway.

A moment later, the call cut out. She was gone.

Leandro had set out intending to speak to his parents about his adoption, but Skye's call had completely derailed his focus. He knew he should still go to them, but the closer he got to the family villa, the further he felt from knowing his own mind.

His brain was scattered, his thoughts in disarray.

This wasn't a big deal.

He'd had dozens of short-term relationships.

Whenever they'd ended, he'd been fine. Relationships ending was a fact of life, like birth, death, laughter, taxes. He had never fought the conclusion of a relationship before, he'd never even been tempted. In his experience, these things burned themselves out. Even when he felt a pang of absence, a hint of missing someone, he knew it would pass quickly.

But he didn't know that with Skye. He didn't feel that with any certainty. All he knew was that he wanted to see her.

Even when she didn't want to see him?

Even when she'd all but begged him not to go to her?

He kept driving towards the villa on autopilot, though his focus was not on his predicament with his parents .

He was not Jay. He could go to her. He could convince her to give this another shot. He knew that when they were together, she struggled to push him away. They were both captive to this desperate, all-consuming desire. But wasn't that just what Jay did to her? Ignoring Skye's wishes because they were in conflict with his own was not the right thing for her. He wanted to be with her, but he wanted her to want that too.

He knew it was complicated. Complicated by her being a mom, complicated by his living in Italy, complicated by her past, and whatever he was going through with his own family right now. But he'd thought they could skate over that, and just enjoy the goodness of what they shared.

Maybe she was right, though. He'd presumed that their chemistry would burn out. That one day, they'd both just become less enthralled by what they felt. He'd presumed this thing would wane and they'd move on. But what if the opposite was true? What if the more time they spent together, the more they wanted one another in their lives? What if one of them wanted more than the other? What if she already did?

He could see only hurt, when he imagined that scenario.

At the gates to his parents' villa, the home in which he'd grown up, Leandro contemplated turning around and driving back to Rome. He considered leaving because his thoughts were so scattered. But it turned out, in a moment such as this, the one place he wanted to be was with his parents. No matter what.

"It is so good to see you." Patrizia was sitting on her hands, as if to keep herself from wrapping Leandro in a huge hug .

He nodded once. It was over. There was no need for him to go to New York this weekend. He'd never see her again. His gut felt hollow.

"Are you hungry?" Ronaldo, beside Patrizia, leaned forward a little.

"No." His stomach emptied out. "But eat, if you are."

"We're not," Patrizia said, reaching instead for her coffee and curling her hands around the fine cup. "I understand you spoke to Max."

Leandro's eyes met theirs. "He told you?"

"He knew we were worried about you," Patrizia defended.

"I'm not angry with him," Leandro muttered, dragging a hand through his hair.

"He was worried too," Ronaldo intoned flatly. "You disappeared from all of our lives."

As Skye was disappearing from his. Emptiness flooded his veins. "I know."

"I understand why you are mad, and disappointed."

He was silent, his dark eyes latched to his mother's. Her eyes were so familiar to him. They were the same eyes that had looked back at him when he'd worried about a test at school or had studied him when he'd scratched up his knees, had looked at him when he'd spoken of his ambitions, his dreams. They were eyes with crinkles at the corner from her ready laugh, a laugh that had formed the backdrop of so many of his memories. He shifted in his seat.

"You should have told me." But the words lacked anger. They lacked conviction. Instead, they were sad, a question in their tone.

"It is complicated." Ronaldo said, drawing Leandro's attention. Leandro frowned. Here was a face so like his own, it had been easy to believe they were related. Why should he have doubted that? So many of their features were a match.

"Your father wanted to tell you," Patrizia said softly, putting a hand on Ronaldo's knee.

Ronaldo shook his head. "But I didn't tell him, so that is no defense."

"I couldn't bear for you to know," Patrizia continued. "The thing is, from the moment you came home with us, you were mine. All mine. There have been times when I've convinced myself that you really were born to me. I told you that I do not love you differently, Leo. Not from your brother and sister. But the truth is, I love you, in some ways, so much more, because you were alone in the world. All alone. Without me, there was no one to protect you, to care for you. Being able to give that to you has been the greatest privilege of my life."

Her voice cracked and Leandro's eyes stung. He blinked quickly.

"Loving you was never a choice," she said gently. "I just felt it, in here." She pressed her fingers to her chest. "And I knew that if we told you the truth, you might not understand. You might doubt that love, doubt your place with us. I couldn't risk it. I am so sorry that you found out as you did. I can imagine the shock you felt. But please understand, we didn't lie to you to hurt you, it was simply because in my heart, you are completely and utterly our son."

They'd said something like that, the night he'd confronted them, but this was different. It felt different. Time had shifted something inside of him, or maybe it was space. Maybe it was New York. Maybe it was Skye and Harper. Whatever the cause, he felt differently now than he had when he'd first seen that document.

"Who were my parents?" He asked, the question seeming somehow important and irrelevant. Whoever they were, they'd given him up. Why should he care about them?

"We did not know your mother, but your father was a distant relation of your father's."

Leandro sat up straighter. "He was?"

"And a friend from childhood," Ronaldo agreed. "But he went off the rails. Your mother was an addict. She got clean long enough to carry you to term, and then overdosed when you were three days old. Your father did his best to raise you for a time, but he was also, I am sorry to say it, a junkie. I didn't know him by then. The first I heard his name, in many years, was when he died and the hospital called. I was next of kin on his medical records."

Leandro's eyes widened. "Why you?"

"I wondered if it was for cynical reasons, like he knew I could afford his hospital bills," Ronaldo said. "But in fact, as I reflected on our friendship, I wondered if I was not the only person he'd ever had in his life, who'd really cared about him."

Leandro swore softly.

Patrizia leaned into Ronaldo, her eyes glazed over with the force of her memories. "You were an orphan, Leo, just one month old. You were alone in the world, and from the moment your father told me about you, I knew I would move heaven and earth to bring you here and make you safe."

Leandro nodded; his throat thick with emotion.

"It was all so sad," she continued. "And you were so happy with us. You are one of us, Leo. You always have been, you always will be. I know in my heart that you are mine, and God knows, I am yours. I would die for you. I would do anything for you. Just like Max and Emme. You have to believe me. You have to believe—," But Patrizia was becoming agitated, tears streaming down her cheeks and Leo stood, pained to see his mother hurting. To know that he'd run away and caused her this distress. Instead of staying and listening to her back then, he'd gone off to lick his wounds, and he'd put her through weeks of not knowing if he'd ever forgive her.

"Stop," he said firmly, going to crouch in front of her. "Please, do not keep speaking." He laid his hands on her hands, now clasped near her knees. "I understand."

She bit into her lower lip. "I am sorry."

He shook his head. "Don't apologise."

"I have to. I need you to know?—,"

"I do know. You love me. I am yours. You are my mother. You are my father. You loved me when you didn't have to, and not once have I doubted that" he said, remembering Skye's words to him in New York.

"Do you mean it?" Ronaldo asked.

"I don't say things I don't mean." Leandro stood, hands on hips. "As far as I am concerned, we need never speak of this again."

Patrizia's eyes closed. "And Emme?"

"She doesn't know?"

"Of course not."

"Then we'll tell her, but let's do it together. It's the only way she'll understand that it doesn't change anything."

Ronaldo stood, putting a hand on Leandro's arm. "It changes nothing, my boy. Nothing." And then he wrapped him in a huge hug, holding him so tight Leandro almost couldn't breathe.

Leandro read the invitation with a strange feeling in his gut. Two weeks after Skye had ended things with him, here was something he couldn't refuse: a gala fundraiser being thrown by a very dear family friend, Antonio's brother Carlo. In Manhattan, of all places. The ball would be attended by the world's elite, and the cause was certainly one Leandro sympathized with: rehabilitation for victims of car accidents and support for family members left behind, in the case of fatalities. With Carlo having lost his own brother Antonio in a way that had scarred Max emotionally for life, Leandro and all of the Valentinos were intimately familiar with Carlo's ongoing work in this area.

Leandro had to go.

The whole family would.

And they were his family. He understood that now.

But the thought of returning to Manhattan brought something else to the fore. Skye.

How could he go there and not see her?

How could he go and not at least tell her he was in town and give her the option of seeing him? He could put the ball in her court. In a totally non-comital, easy, no-drama way. To show her how different he was to Jay.

And if she didn't want to see him?

He ignored the chasm in the centre of his chest. He wouldn't contemplate that yet. He wasn't sure he could.